As Howling Wind Across the Steppes
by MaussHauss
Summary: Mahariel has been cast adrift in a sea of violence, lust and betrayal. M!Mahariel/Alistair slash, prompted by a severe lack thereof at k!meme.
1. The Way The World Ends

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Jessyn Brillwater would meet Daeon Mahariel in the Anderfels; her tribe playing host that year to the migrants from the dry Nevarra south.

The Brillwater family, part of a coastal clan nearer Antiva, was dark and clever and skilled with boning knives.

The Mahariels, by contrast, were light and solid and skilled with weaving rope. They who had spent most of their generation wandering the mountains, having been borne of a clan wider in frame and sturdier of constitution, were light of skin and hair and very heavily Nevarran.

The Brillwaters wore their sharp regards in their smiles and the glint of their blades, wily as the sea itself. Jessyn Brillwater had fallen in love immediately. She was Daeon Mahariel's opposite in nearly every way, fierce and loud and full to brimming with music and laughter, dark hair snapping loose in the wind like an inky sail caught dancing through a storm. She was thin; he was stocky. She'd burn the fish in haste; he'd sit patiently by the netting.

It did not take much convincing for Daeon Mahariel to trade rocky mountain road for stormy coastal forest. When their son was born, Keeper Briendl warned the couple of the conflict the child would face with his mother's blood running hot and his father's blood running cold through his veins. With his mother's night-black hair and his father's gold eyes, the babe carried his colors as did the blackbears found in the plush southern forests all throughout Orlais; thus the babe had been named Mathain, and pledged to Dirthamen of Secrets. So too would the child grow with the moon and the sun burning bright and cold in his belly - as the great bear whom the creators had slain in order to retrieve the sky, settling his pelt over the earth to become the dark loam beneath their sleeping heads.

Keeper Briendl had drawn the crow's feathers from his bag and scattered them over the infant's krattel. What he read in the crooked message of their fall, he refused to divulge. Within that year, Mathain Mahariel would be an orphan.

When the Arlathven came to its end, it was to Ashalle Reddain of clan Sabrae the babe was trusted. Through Orlais, the coasts, the mountains - Sabrae passed the years in the aimless searching drift of creaking aravel and baying halla. Mathain would grow to be a surly child, advancing through a brooding youth with a dark temper that brought itself out as cruel intolerance towards the blood-quickened shemlen in any land the clan might linger. By the time Mathain claimed the right to wield a sword and shield in his clan's defense, his blood had settled into the patient indifference of his father, though the flames of his mother's passion lurked just beneath the surface and none of his peers would poke twice to rile him - in jest or otherwise.

They would call him Mad Mahariel, but the greater world would know him only as the Hero of the Blight.

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Mathain put his boot heel to the broad shemlen back, bracing the corpse as he yanked the arrow free. The first shot had been too low, indelicate strength souring his aim. The kill shot belonged to Tamlen Birch'reagh, a relative of Ashalle's with whom Mathain had been spending much of his nineteenth summer. Mathain pointed the bloodied tip of his arrow at his clansman. "Thieved my kill."

Tamlen, a fair-haired hunter with a needling wit, hid a tranquility behind his rakish smile and a cold ruthlessness behind that tranquility; a steel trap under the viper under the flower. He snorts, kicking the second corpse over to inspect for valuables. "We are going to catch hell for this, you know. Especially if they are from that patch of dirt they like to call a village." A stiff silence, both more than familiar with Keeper Marethari's calcitrance to war-mongering with the locals. Shem villages often encroached on the forest's hunting borders; hot-headed youths often sported itchy bow-fingers - still prickly from the wrongs they had suffered in their more vulnerable years; deep-rooted grudges for whose inception they hadn't been alive to witness were often reinforced by fresh incidents; all a recipe for disaster. It would be the third relocation in as many seasons, should the retaliation escalate. "Too bad we can't collect their pelts. Earn your vallaslin at last."

Mathain grimaced, stepping over the third and final kill, through which he had lobbed his short sword like a throwing axe. He kept a stony silence against the suggestion; it had been many seasons since he'd qualified for the ceremony, capable both in courage and skill. As his temper had matured, though, so his oddities had grown. Mathain Mahariel kept to the solitude of the forest, improving his trap-building through relentless trial and error. He hunted alone, with little success, mostly to fritter away time; and fished and gathered and stole away to nap or read or eat alone, always alone. Never once did he bring back the more significant pelt of a wolf or... or bear.

Never once did he show interest in a bondsmate, or in claiming a more official title in the clan's intimate hierarchy of skill and knowledges.

As if echoing Mathain's thoughts, Tamlen presses forward, "It is not as if you are weak. You might not be able to shoot down a wolf, but I bet that sword could do swift mercy to a heavier animal, eh?" His own vallaslin tattoo creased sharp around the smile in his summer-blue eyes.

"I feel as though you, of all people, have compromised your position on this matter, cousin." Mathain crosses his arms, patient. Staring down at the twisted shock of horror on a dead shem's face. Calculating. His voice bears the deep lilt of the Dales, as did most caravan-born, and he of book and lonely afternoons often spoke as a man out of time. As if he were not nine and ten autumns past, but a hundred. This was a new affectation, and much to Ashalle's surprise - indeed through most of his years Mathain had made up his mind not to speak much at all - and here the shy butterfly had cracked from the cocoon at last, words flooding free as a damn burst by years-long rains.

Tamlen had developed his friendship with Mad Mahariel during the early years of wordlessness and ill temper, driven by a persistent curiosity - a sort of irrefutable urge to pry into Mathain's life that had seen them both bloodied in the dirt on more than one occasion. He knew why Mathain refused to bend to the coming-of-age ritual. He was simply being obtuse. "Oh yes, I have forgotten. The day our winsome Mahariel is officially recognized as an eligible bachelor is the day half the free women in the cold marshes make war on the other half for his favor. Hundreds maimed, dozens wounded! Dalish numbers take an invaluable blow. Shut up." It is drawled, teasing, then hardens into a sincerity which strikes like the knife after the caress. "Ashalle was not trying to mate you like a stud halla, Mad. She just... she worries. She was trying to appeal to your sense of duty, as it seems to hold a higher regard in that thick skull of yours over, er, romantic sentiment."

Mathain steps quick, close, not as swiftly nor as silently as his more spry clansmen, but the threat is evident. "And what if I did hold the sentiment higher than my duty? A sentiment that would never fruit Ashalle grandchildren, never strengthen our numbers with fresh blood?"

Tamlen is faking his surprise, a smirk hiding just under the wide-eyed inquisitive tilt of his chin.

Mathain allows him the falsity, because he respects the viper as much as he loves the flower, and the steel trap beneath them both he loves and respects most of all. "Ashalle would have taken me in for nothing. I would be a dead weight to this clan, just another blade they do not need causing trouble with the shems."

Tamlen follows the gesture to the slain intruders. "What exactly were these bandits, or treasure seekers, or huntsmen or whomever doing, this far into clearly marked Dalish territory? For that matter, what hath brought Mad Mahariel along this time around, when I know for a fact he'd been assigned elsewhere for the day?" Quite out of the topic at hand, he mutters, "Aren't you supposed to be studying with master Ilen right now? I happen to recall a certain excitable bit of 'dead weight' eager over a rare type of spring-bough for his border traps."

Mathain scoffs, peering down the trail their quarry had been blundering through before they'd been caught short. "A fine snap-maple bough is not nearly as prized as time alone with you, lethallin."

Tamlen steps around him, following the trail, a dart of willowy tan and leather. "I have half a mind to take that seriously, you know." At the answering silence, he turns.

Mathain cuts a dark silhouette at the top of the trail, gazing off into the underbrush with a stern and puzzled frown. "No," he shrugs, crossing corded arms. "I'd not want to take anyone else away to a fruitless marriage." Sneered, eyes shuttered against emotion.

The bitterness is as palpable as if it were the dense forest fog draping through the mossy boughs, and Tamlen sneaks up to nudge Mathain toward the path and out of his reverie. "You'll come with me to this fabled cave of demons and treasure, will you not? We may talk as we search." A placating smile, blue eyes eager with curiosity.

Suspicion hooded, Mathain shakes his head. "We ought inform the keeper first. Get these corpses burned." He turns, resolute, stopped in his retreat by arms that had snaked their way around his shoulders, Tamlen's silent grin pressed against the jumping pulse of his tawny neck.

Tamlen makes a noise, half laugh and half complaint, gliding fingers through Mathain's thick black hair, resting his nose in the soft heat behind a long ear. "You know what I think, cousin?" A thumb drifts over Mathain's chin and glances across his full bottom lip. "I think... that you really have no business worrying over shite like marriage an' offspring, when you haven't even got..." Delicate fingers trace the pattern where a vallaslin tattoo might lay, wordlessly illustrating. "You leave that up to the adults, 'ey." Tamlen is shoved away with naught but a snarl for his efforts, laughing, pushing, forever prodding Mathain forward where his stubborn pride would see him stagnate. "Well it is true!" He darts down the path, just out of reach, taunting and coming up short, an uneven pattern to their usual playful disagreements - he stops, they collide. Tamlen keeps the blows from landing, breezing through Mathain's guard to land a kiss on his scowling face.

Instantly, Mahariel is transformed. His eyes widen, soften. He stills, tugs weakly against the embrace. Heart thudding through his armor, swallowing back an insult already half forgotten.

Tamlen Birch'reagh is breathless; for all his skill the risk is still as great in sparking Mahariel's temper so casually - and they were both too old not to hurt each other in earnest, physically or otherwise. "I've got five teeth riding on the guess that those shems just got spooked by a bear." He nudges Mathain's forehead with his own, the heat of a blush warm between them. "A bear you could slay. A skin you could give me -" breathless, unable to continue. Trying to say Mahariel's name, mouth ghosting over the shapes the letters might make through his lips. Meeting the open hope in eyes so light a brown as to be gold, a face that had long stopped showing any emotion beyond anger or that cold, dead distance of introspection. Stopping short, swallowing, breathless. "And then you'd have the right to complain about marriage." A kiss that doesn't quite land; a flutter of skin and one last final squeeze before Tamlen is stalking off, shaking himself loose and coming back to alert.

They had a cave to find, and Tamlen Birch'reagh had yet to catch his breath.

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	2. Attenuation

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It was the memory of a fever he'd had in the distant past; of falling arse over teakettle into a freezing bloomtide thaw that had swollen the river thrice its normal size and deepened its current to something ruthless and dark. The Orlesian fur trappers who had fished them out were drunk, and for some reason their cruelty deemed especially _shemlike_ with a casual shrug, as if being poor and drunk they had no choice but to follow their barbarity to its perverse ends.

Fearsome, pretty things. Blowing acrid flame across the back of his neck. Destroying everything they touched.

When it was Duncan of the Grey who held the fevered elf, there was no less violence. A ribald encouragement from another shem, "This one still got some life in him, Commander!" and Mahariel was ill all down the front of the polished Warden armor. The world pulsed, quickened. The sun and the moon chased each other in the hollow place inside of him, where his heart used to be.

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"Then let me die, _Hahren_!"

The slap is delivered with force, an icy sting. Marethari is too angry to speak at first, lips pursed into pale lines. "Da'len," she begins, slow, careful. "You have a place in this life that is not ours to determine. I see this now, as advice Keeper Briendl gave to me many seasons ago at the last _Arlathvhen_... Oh, Mathain..." A warm, feeble embrace.

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The river pulled deep, an inky mirk. It had nearly been peaceful, that crushing depth. The sharp tang of blood, the grunt of a half-waking fur trapper. The sun rose, the moon chased it.

"I am Duncan of the Grey. Your death need not be in vain, young one."

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An answering sneer. _O plant no trees, elder. I will bring Tamlen back if I must fight the Dread Wolf to do so._

A second fire in his veins. No river could douse it. He lost color; time. "The blight affects us all, da'len." Marethari gathered the clan around him. All of Sabrae took him in their arms and passed him on, a dead kinsman walking.

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The sun rose and fell; the moon chased it.

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It was the loneliness that ate at him, even more than the darkspawn taint, down the long road to Ostagar. Where once he'd slept under the stars, snug in the press of the limbs and snores of his kin, now he huddled against hard ground in a small, oppressive tent. Mourning, gripped by fear - Duncan frankly terrified him, and he was too proud to let this show as anything more severe than a stony Dalish grudge against all shemlen. He hurt, and was hurting still, and could only trade hurt for hurt.

The fever made the days long and the nights surreal; the booming voices of the Wardens drove him to the trees, only to reappear exhausted and starving at the breakfast fire. Some days he couldn't be arsed to care, silently pleading that one of the heavier men he picked a fight with might just run him through and get it over with. Never had Mathain been so confused before he'd met the type of shem who considered his intemperate brawling as a comradely sparring, and not the attempt on their lives (and the stain against their honor) it so very obviously had been intended.

When Ostagar was reached, Mathain Mahariel had no sanity left for politesse with the king; he also maimed a shopkeep offhand for ordering him around under the mistaken identity of a camp servant. This saw him caged with the mabari hounds, delirious and ill as the beasts themselves, and the irony would later throw him into a fit of hysteria - thoroughly unsettling passers-by. Eventually he was stood from the straw bedding, given his sword and put with the trainees to their task.

Immediately beyond the gates of camp, Mahariel disappeared into the forest. He felt the earth sing in his bones, skirting throngs of darkspawn, fleeing their chaperone's sharp bark of aggravation. The shems were tall, even the not-so-tall cutpurse, and every one had a reach much longer than Mathain's, and Mathain himself was weak and delirious and consumed with grief and did not just then feel like walking into a warzone alone with three strangers in the peak of health.

He gathered the vials by himself, caught sometime midafternoon in the middle of skinning a wolf.

"There you are," The fair-headed Warden had growled - stern and worried.

Mathain looked down at his field knife, then back up at the inquisitive stares of his bloodied comrades. "It's a wedding gift," He tried explaining, pale and overwrought.

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It was a bone-deep, bottomless despair that gripped Mahariel when he woke from the Joining, and couldn't hardly remember how he'd gotten there. The one thing he could recall with cruel, exacting clarity; he was alone. His clan had given him away. His lover was dead. Even his fellow recruits had not survived the ordeal.

"Rise, brother, and be welcomed at last into the ranks of the Grey Wardens."

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"You're afraid of me." Alistair had a clever, introspective way with inflection and tone that mirrored Tamlen's. It grated against Mathain's raw nerves, unsettling to a mind left shaken from disease and loss.

Mathain drew his sword, though his arm was limp with residual exhaustion. "Call me for a coward again, shem, and you'll hurt the too few Warden numbers in match."

Alistair blinked, hefting his shield in a contemplative blow that saw Mahariel knocked from already unsteady legs. "How about we never draw a weapon against me? Ever?"

Mathain glared up from the dirt. "Do not question my courage. _Ever_."

Alistair huffed. "You _are_ what the country folk would call 'a mite skittish', though. Never seen a war camp before?" The smile he offered had probably meant to be open, encouraging and friendly.

Mathain only saw mockery, and at the offered hand he simply turned a bruised shoulder.

"Right. Well. You'll be needing some heavier armor for the upcoming battle. Ever been in anything that wasn't doubled leather?" Alistair dusted his shield and slung it over his back, bending to haul Mahariel up by the back of his arms.

It _was_ fear that flashed through Mathain's face as he struggled from the helping hands, breathless and wild-eyed and suddenly Alistair realized how very _small _elves were, even elves like Mathain Mahariel who might be a bit broader and maybe half a head taller than their inner-city, underfed kin, and - Alistair dropped his grip and stepped away, coughing discreetly into a fist. Mathain had scuffled a few feet away, glaring warily over his shoulder.

"Or you can just... wear what you've got. Whatever's comfortable." Alistair gave a weak wave, grasping his shield for lack of better place to put his hands, and departed.

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	3. Viscera In The Daylight

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Piecemeal, the battle took form in his dreams. Perhaps he had been truly mad, Mad and mad again with taint and panic and grief, but now his thoughts stilled. Calmed under the soothe of healing magic quite unlike Marethari's desperate struggle to rid his veins of filth. He dreamt of the ocean, great rolling tides and cool sand under his feet. The liral strings and smoking incense and creaking, salt-dusted landships. Swaying lamps of animal fat dotting the night with warmth.

He dreamt that he was home, but woke in a foreign bed.

The ceiling above was mud and roughshod bough, grayed straw and canvas. Bones and feathers and drying herbs dangled from the rafters, a melody of hollow clank and rustle when the door was pried open by a large-eyed woman in tattered dark leathers. "I see our honored guest has risen from the dead." Her voice caught on Mathain's memories, something honeyed but dangerous.

Mathain struggled to a sit, collecting what he could of his wits, the burning ache replaced by a cold settle, as ash after a bonfire is gutted by the rain. He blinked salty grit from his eyes, grasping feebly to the first memory that surfaced. "What became of the battle?"

The woman gave a dainty scoff, fussing over a low table where Mathain's bloodied armors had been patched. "The General who was to answer your tower signal quit the field. The... darkspawn won the day."

Mathain grit his teeth, testing the stretch and pull of his wound as if to make his way free of the bed.

The woman glanced sharply up from the trunk to which she had bent, "The retribution can wait until you're cured, though I'm certain you do your fallen king proud with such enthusiasm."

"I care not what shem politics dictate, only Loghain's betrayal saw Grey Wardens fallen in their cause. The Blight -"

"Affects us all." The woman interrupted, rolling her green-gold eyes. "You and mother have much to discuss. If you are well enough, you might as well join your fellow outside and speak with her."

"My fellow?"

She laughed, a clear bright noise. "The weepy Templar, yes. Your fellow Warden...?"

Mathain studied his hostess; the pale unblemished skin, the dyed linen barely covering her breasts, the laced collar of beaded stone. Unkempt hair pulled up into a dark array of feathers and carved wooden comb. "You are the witch, from the swamp."

Tone gentle, hands splayed as if to keep a wild animal from fleeing, "I, am Morrigan. Lest you have forgot." She held out a clean tunic, which smelled of tumeric and the bottom of a cedar chest as Mahariel dragged it over his head. "The prat outside introduced himself as Alistair. My mother consoles him; her name, is Flemeth."

"Then thank you, Morrigan." Whatever - whoever - this woman was, she was quite unlike any of the shemlen Mathain had ever heard of. Almost as if she weren't a shem at all, but a piece of the cold southern marshes made flesh and given voice.

"Well, I am no healer -" She waved away Mathain's gaze, pursing her lips. "It was mother who... Ah. You are welcome, then. Yes." She turned to the table and gathered what serviceable bits of armor had been ready. "I daresay that other Warden will be glad to see you've rallied."

Mathain pulled the breeches on with some difficulty - this was second-hand armor issued before the battle, heavy plait and maille and the padded leathers that set beneath. He'd be warm enough, but unbalanced. Sluggish. "And what of Alistair?"

"In hale form. He grieves for the fallen." An impatient sigh.

Mathain grunts, fingering the clasps for the breastplate. The armor smelled strange, the metallic tang of blood, the musk of someone else's sweat. Cracking, un-oiled leather. Rusty scrape of double-forged chainlink. He felt the extra weight on his lingering wounds, and must have been pulling a face of great distaste, because Morrigan let out another velvet laugh on facing him.

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He knew a thing or two about grief, did Mahariel. He knew just how it could steal your wits, could anchor your thoughts to a single moment and quicken your years from you. But he also knew about fighting, about scraping yourself off the stones and building something like survival out of the mess that had been left behind. The Dalish were well acquainted with loss, and it came as no surprise that Alistair of the Grey was not so readily equipped to deal with the deaths of so many in so short a time.

Morrigan only scolded; she too had no grace with handling grief.

When Mathain had left the witch's hovel two days past the lost battle, Alistair's eyes had still been wet. (They were wet even this day, three days on the road.) He had seemed inordinately _happy_ to learn of Mathain's improved health, relieved that he lived. It was perhaps _that _moment Mathain had realized that the Wardens had served as a clan to Alistair; and that made himself as good as kin, through ritual and whatever dark tradition of sacrifice the Grey Order deemed necessary to defeat what Blight might arise. They were bound, by archon blood and common cause, and Mahariel knew much of this brand of kinship, too.

He quieted Morrigan.

He kept Alistair within sight, within reach. It frayed his nerves to do so, but whatever threat Alistair had ever posed had been diluted by their shared loss.

That night, with the noisome mess of a shemlen village within sight, Alistair finally spoke of Duncan. Mathain did for him what he would have done for any kinsman, and threw a consoling arm around the broad shoulders (much to Morrigan's horrified, unvoiced disgust). He was quick to withdraw the embrace, of course, but Alistair remained dry-eyed from that night on.

Mathain himself remained withdrawn, silently observing. Speaking only when spoken to, interfering only when it looked like Morrigan had Alistair cornered. He'd laugh, silently to himself, at the idea that he was acting Keeper to this odd pair of shems. His dark humors were a fast lesson in Dalish etiquette, though beneath all the stony bravado his heart hammered away in his chest. Fear pulsing thick in his veins.

The definition of bravery, after all, was knowing well your fears but carrying on despite them. Mad Mahariel was a lot of unpleasant things, but coward was not among that count. It was there in the turn of his sword, in the arc of his leap, in the wet thundering fall of the slain ogre. It had been there in the strength of his arm as he'd pried Alistair from the dead thing's enormous grasp. But he'd been wild-eyed with fever even then, staring down at Alistair as if they'd only just met.

Owing to the present; the worst thing that could befall Mathain Mahariel was death. And that was a thing he very nearly welcomed at the start of every skirmish. So what was there to fear?

The glare of sunlight through the open meadow, the hubble of peasants crammed together in a muddy village, the spill of dark arterial blood as the first highway bandit fell to Mathain's sword.

"Stab first, ask questions later?!" Alistair had groused from behind his shield, effectively running another criminal through, despite his criticism.

Morrigan laughed behind them, wreaking merry elemental havoc, cursing the bandits for fools with every lash.

At the end, Mahariel stood with the great war hound at his side, idly patting the broad head. The sun burned bright above them, gleaning off blood-soaked paving stones. Alistair panted, grunting as he pried a crossbow bolt free from his side. The menthel waft of fresh poultice, anasthemic burn of crushed elfroot. The tang of hot metal under the sun, of fresh blood. Mathain's sword was heavy in his grasp, greaves and gloves thick and stifling.

He nearly felt like he might have a fever, if it weren't for the fact that the very center of him had gone so still and cold.

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Mahariel waited outside the village, propped against the white carved stone of the fallen highway. The Mabari rested at his feet, glancing up every now and again to wag his stump of a tail in the cool shade. Both sets of ears twitched at the oncoming crush of dry grass beneath heavy boots.

"There's no food to be found in all of Lothering. Place is over-run with refugees."

Mahariel glanced balefully to the setting sun.

"Er," Alistair coughed. "Since I figured you'd be starving by now. It's a Warden thing, you know. You'll sort of, go through these _changes _you see."

"I have known hunger before."

"Er. Yes, right. Well. We'd best get a move on, then." Alistair too readily exposes his back to Mathain, who itches to teach him a painful lesson on keeping alert. "Only..." He's still not facing Mathain, palming the back of his neck. "Only I'm not exactly certain where we ought to start." Defeated, steps back to the cool press of stone to rest, meeting Mathain's glare for a heartbeat longer than usual. "We've got the treaties, and I have an ally in the Arl of Redcliffe, or we could..." quiet, nearly a whisper "help evacuate this town, or..."

Mathain sighs harsh through his nose. "What would our duties as Grey Wardens dictate?"

Alistair shrugs, mouth pinched in a grimace. "I don't rightly know. We fight darkspawn, sure, and save as many innocent lives as possible. But right now we really need to build up our support, and we'll accomplish none of that if we're dead at the end of the week by Loghain's men."

"Loghain's men? Are they near?"

"Er. Yes? I think they're at the tavern, but I haven't checked for certain."

Mahariel clicked his tongue and the hound followed him to the wide pale steps that led into the town. Only... "What is a tavern?" Or rather, he should have asked _where_, because shem buildings all looked the same, monstrosities of stone and mud and timbre.

Alistair hid a laugh behind a cough, though the spark of mirth had yet to leave his eyes as he patiently explained that they'd be better off keeping a discreet, non-stabby presence in Lothering.

Mathain stepped close, the mabari keeping place at the town gate. "And how would you see your brothers avenged, if not by the spill of your enemy's blood?"

"Um," Alistair seemed to puzzle this over for a severe twenty seconds, but then, "Are... are your eyes _yellow_? Maker's breath, are you related to Morrigan? You are, aren't you. Welp, that explains much." He laughs, clapping Mahariel's shoulder as he passes, both ignoring the flinch. "No stabbing. Unless they stab first. You know what? No talking, either. There's a blacksmith who says he can refit armor, and I found some light splintmail I think would be more your style, with all the jumpy-type stabbing you like to get up to."

Mahariel's face is softened by surprise, but Alistair has turned his back to lead the way, and could not witness the rare event.

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"You can't up and _threaten _a Revered Mother like that!"

It is not the first time Mathain has witnessed Alistair's anger; it would not be the last.

Morrigan is a smug presence behind their swift march, indulgent laughter low and throaty.

Mathain stalks off without argument, clutching the key to the Kossith's prison. He would be patient, and try to forgive Alistair his ignorance, he would -

"Hey," A hard hand on his shoulder, "_Look _at me when I'm trying to talk to y-"

They ended in the dirt of the road, Mathain crouched straddling Alistair's armored frame, pinning him by stiff weight alone. They are nose-to-nose, fierce silent snarl against indignant surprise. "The same church that drove my people from their homeland, slaughtering _hundreds of thousands_ of innocents, erasing my _entire culture_, and you would have me, what? Pay a tithe of thirty silver?" One last shove, Mahariel freeing himself from the half-hearted grapple. He spits in disgust before stalking off, while Morrigan - chuckling - resumes her post at the bridge side.

"Mathain -" Alistair picks himself up, glaring over at Morrigan. "Oh stuff it, would you?"

Morrigan dons a mask of exaggerated sympathy. "Not everyone in Thedas a mindless git for your beloved chantry? Feeling rather outmatched right about now, are we?"

"I never meant to - oh, shut up! You only ever have to make things _worse_, don't you?"

Morrigan sneers, trying to collect her composure. "I have done no such thing, but my heart bleeds for you." A scoff. "Truly. _His_ people had to survive a years-long massacre, but that's nothing compared to the MINUTES of awkward conversation to which _you_ just played witness. Poor thing!" Calling after his stiff-backed retreat; "Did he hurt your feelings especially, when he called her an ignorant pig glutted on the empty hopes of her blind children - ?"

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* * *

There was one thing that Mathain Mahariel could catalogue before he was propelled through the tavern door by a hard fist, and that was just how much blood looks like so much _more _when it's spilled in an enclosed space; as opposed to when it's spilled out of doors and has a bit of room to stretch out and soak in. Not just... pool and splash everywhere; on tables, puddling along the uneven floorboards, specks and dollops flecked by their violent struggle on the skirt hems and ashen faces of patrons who couldn't scurry away fast enough.

He doesn't get the chance to stumble, Alistair's gauntlet-hard fingers dug firm in the neckline of his armor, scraping between his collarbone and the leather. "You," Mathain can wager Alistair is sincerely upset, because he does not shout, words bitten and growled around a bruised mouth. "Have _got_ to _stop _killing people!" A rough shake.

The laysister has followed close behind, expression drawn but resolute under her mussed red hair. "It is finished; we can all stop fighting now yes?" A slim hand on Alistair's forearm, and Mathain is released before his confusion can harden into offense.

"They attacked-" "They surrendered-" "-you." Mathain blinked, hand on his sword pommel as if to draw it anew.

Alistair balks, surprise quickly ebbed back by residual horror at the cold murder he'd just witnessed. "They had already surrendered," he reiterates, jaw set. The Sister beside him silently nods.

Mathain sneers, but does not meet Alistair's eye (and, by the Sister's amused observation, might have been pouting a bit were it not for the fact that Mathain _did not pout_, ever, even going so far as to suck in his bottom lip and keep it clamped firmly between his teeth). Mathain releases his sword, still in need of a good cleaning, and crosses his arms. "They attacked - " a level stare, "us. I would not give them the chance to rally, or to tell of our location. What good the word of men who follow someone as vile and shiftless as Loghain?"

Alistair rubs his face, turning his back to stalk down the crowded evening streets. "Who even _talks _like that?" He laments to himself, but on passing Morrigan's post on the bridge, decides that all isolated forest folk were cracked in the skull and stuck a good hundred years behind everyone else in terms of, well... not quite barbarity, and... not quite education. Communication? Idealism? Alistair himself was not a _stupid_ man by any means. Few rumors ever reached him concerning the Dalish, and those that did make the daily gossip had painted the nomads as nothing more than raiders. He was beginning to suspect where people had gotten _that_ impression, but what he couldn't understand was the _depth_ behind Mathain's actions. He seemed to take everything so damned _personally_, responding to slights of honor with ... well, with the mess they'd just made of that poor tavern.

And Maker, the way he spoke! Alistair was counting the days before Mathain pulled out a few 'thou's and 'thy's and maybe a 'hither' or 'thither' or 'whence', and on second thought, he'd already used 'whence'. Twice. Which was really saying something, because it wasn't as if the man spoke very much at all, not unless he was arguing his right to stab things.

Alistair turned at the steps of the chantry to see if the Laysister had followed and was startled to find that she had, and that Mathain had come silently alongside. The Qunari was waiting for their approach just inside the steps, having collected what meager belongings the officials had confiscated for his imprisonment, chief of which were a set of armors more sized to his giant frame. A weapon large enough for this 'Sten' to wield effectively, they would have to purchase. From the vendors who were all now properly terrified of Mathain.

Which was, as Alistair put it, 'bloody arsome'.

* * *

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	4. Bend

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* * *

The map was new and stark, fresh ink tattooed over light doe skin, a near-perfect replica of Ferelden as it stood (with erroneous assumptions of just how the 'wilds' were laid out; intimate knowledge to the wandering peoples of the Dales). Mathain worked over the roads and dotted forests with a needle heated over the guttering candle flame and dipped in the solid crust of the ink pot. He corrected, scribbled and scritched, blowing on the fresh marks before blotting them gently with a torn bit of burlap.

Once satisfied, Mathain nodded to Alistair, who had been hovering but kept his questions in check (having learned well enough by then the futility of prying). "We are here," Mathain circled the sketched windmill of Lothering with a knuckle. "Our nearest refute is your Arldom in the Red Cliffs, here... and you say our mage treatise can be addressed not too far from that, and so on to the _Durgen'len _kingdoms, over the westernmost mountains. Frostkeep?"

"Frostback."

"Hn." Mathain gnaws the tip of his thumb, absently smudging ink and ash against the corner of his mouth. (Alistair would wipe it off if he didn't suspect it would cost him his arm, and remarking on the mess would land him at the business end of another of those flat-eyed glares.) "Which would leave our last treatise with my people, who won't be easy to find. Less so if we're searching the hard landscape of the Westers."

"Your clan was nearer Endsmarch, south of Denerim, wasn't it? In the Brecelians." Alistair tapped the map and Mathain became still.

"We'd have to double-back sometime before trekking near to Orlais for the Durgen."

"What's to stop us from simply making the Brecelian forest our first destination? Get it done and over with, then travel west from then on?"

"Is your ally so secure from Loghain that we might delay in meeting with him?"

A nervous, breathy laugh. "Good point." A contemplative silence settled between them, broken only by the scrape of the whetstone Sten was using on his great-axe just outside the tent (a tent which had been purchased for the sole purpose of sheltering their gear and foodstocks from the elements - stretching their coin just to keep everyone fed and equipped as they were). Alistair straightened up from the barrel improvising as a table. "Whichever you choose, we leave at first light, so go ahead and get some sl-"

"I shan't turn back from this, you know. I won't."

Alistair slumped, defeated by confusion. "All right, I'll bite. Turn back from what?"

"If we were to search the forest. Even if we found my own clan; I wouldn't return to them. I'd see the Blight ended first."

"I... had figured." Alistair announces slowly, uncertain. "You are obviously a man of your word, and you owed Duncan; isn't that what you said? Made the vow. I have never doubted you for all that."

Mathain made a quiet, displeased grunt and began to fold the map in on itself. "Yet you suspect I am more Dalish than Warden, even now?" A forgiving wave. "Aye, 'tis true, even if the worry has yet to settle on your shoulders. First and foremost, I am a Wanderer of the Dales. But I will not quit my place in this world, in the Wardens."

"Eh..." Alistair rubs the back of his neck, pulling up a crate to take a heavy sit. "Mathain," He stops, lets out a breath, searches the space between his curled hands. "Why do you suppose neither Duncan nor I introduced ourselves with surnames?"

"Because you are an orphan bastard, and Duncan presumably the same?"

"Hah! Ah, no. Duncan is... _was_ 'of the Grey'. I, am Alistair of the Grey. You? Mathain of the Grey. You aren't Dalish; you aren't even Mahariel, according to doctrine. Nothing goes above your Warden duties; not family or friends, not lovers, no old jobs or noble titles or dark criminal pasts take priority. Maker, they don't even _matter_." He loosely cups one fist in the other, cracking his knuckles, meeting Mathain's eye. "We slay darkspawn, protect the innocent to our best ability, and wake up the next day to do it all over again. 'In war, victory; in peace, vigilance; in death, sacrifice'. Scrub, wring, hang. Bottom line, end of job description. Period."

Mathain stands, and Alistair silently congratulates himself on not flinching. "Vir assan; vir bor'assan; vir adahlen!" A hard laugh.

"It's... I know it's a bit hard to accept. I know you didn't exactly have a choice in all this, but - "

Mathain is shaking his head, shoulders jerking in silent laughter. "I prefer the Warden mantra. Know you what Vir Assan means? Bor'Assan? _Adahlen_?"

"Er."

"Everything I have, for the past nineteen bloomtides, _failed at completely_." Mathain throws his hands over his head, teeth bright in another laugh. "To fly straight as an arrow, unwavering? Hah! Most days I do not waver so much as _careen_ from the path set before me! And the second, Vir Bor'Assan, it is the way of the bow. To bend, but never break!" A small, agitated pacing. "You have known me all of two weeks and already know I do _not bend for anything_, do you not?"

Eyebrow raised, Alistair nods.

"And the third, Alistair of the Grey, and the most difficult, is the way of the forest. Can you only guess? 'Tis as simple as the thin sapling branch; take one branch and you may snap it easily. But gather three, five branches in your hand at once and their strength expounds. 'Vir Adahlen; together we are stronger than one'." A scoff so loud Alistair thinks he knows the truth of the term 'barking mad'. "I..." A sudden pause, as if Mahariel can't decide whether to be angry, sad or ecstatic. "Have _never _worked well with others."

"I couldn't. imagine. why."

Mahariel puts a hand on Alistair's shoulder, as if to steady himself over his seated companion. The headbutt is swift, and not too hard, but hard enough for the violence to be on just that side of not-quite-friends. It left Alistair clutching his forehead and cursing through his confused protest.

* * *

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* * *

The travel was not too difficult; the weather mild and the darkspawn mass not yet bled so far north. They would gather proper coin for their cause from Arl Eamon of Redcliffe, but in the meantime live as Mathain had lived his whole life - off the bounty of the land. Mathian built traps with clever fingers; baiting and tending those traps with unwavering patience, selling what meat or pelts they did not use. If he could not sell, he would trade. Well, Leliana and Alistair would make the actual trades; Mathain would slip back to the forest unbidden. Whether he was searching for his kin or simply couldn't stand the company left at camp was difficult to tell.

On the larger scale of things, Mahariel enjoyed being a Warden. Once the illness of the Taint had faded, he'd only nightmares to contend with (and those had never been far from his nights in the first place, though dragons and vibrant slaughter were a refreshing change from the queasy recollection of rivers and rough, clumsy hands).

But though he reveled in the newfound freedoms of the Wardens ('any means necessary' was his new favorite motto), Mathain could not shake the purveying _loneliness_ that had crippled him at the start of his induction. He found himself sleeping with his back to the Mabari's for warmth and a second heartbeat, though the smell could drive him from the comfort of even that. At times, provoking Alistair was just an excuse for Mathain to _touch _him, even if it were a shove.

At other times, provoking Alistair was done quite accidentally, and Mathain found himself backpedaling, panic sour in his gut. He'd shut down, stop speaking, cross his arms and spread his stance wider, listening intently to try and figure out exactly where their cultures had clashed _that _time around. And why, and how, and to what exact effect, and all else. Eventually Alistair would run out of steam; he never stayed angry for very long, if it was even anger in the first place and not merely ill-vented shock.

It was these moments, the calm after the one-sided storm, with Alistair nonplussed over just why Mathain wasn't retaliating and Mathain contemplative and indulgent over Alistair's sheer _shem_hood. In those times, the world seemed to shrink around Mathain and expand at the same time, empty but for the two of them, small enough that he could swallow the sky, large enough that he would have to cross oceans just to reach over and clasp Alistair's shoulder.

Alistair didn't understand, but he made an effort and asked questions and that was... exasperating. Irritating. Endearing.

Mathain would not push any further during those arguments, and indeed made himself scarce all throughout their continued trek into the borders of the dark forested land that concealed his clan. He had decided to like Alistair if only because they were as much of a clan to each other as there could be and clans generally worked better when everyone got along - at least on a superficial level. And sometimes, getting along with Alistair meant avoiding him.

It was under the familiar fold of mossy branches that Mathain returned to camp, Morrigan alert on the watch with a respectful nod. Alistair was curled in his bedroll nearer the supplies tent, stretching out to a sprawl when Mathain curiously nudged his ribs with his boot (it wasn't a kick, no matter how amusing Morrigan thought it was to insist as much).

Perhaps it was the forest, the smell of damp and the nostalgic coos and trills of nocturnal animal life. Maybe it was the panic edging at the corner of his mind that he might not be able to find any clan at all, nevermind his own. That the Dalish world had disappeared from his grasp as easily as it had from that of the Andrastian Chantry. Or it could have been the ache eating away at the core of him, the hunger that wasn't 'Warden changes' and wasn't illness and wasn't anything. Whatever it was, now that Alistair had made room enough, Mathain had laid down without a second thought and curled up into the warm spot. It was as natural a habit as eating by a crowded campfire or bathing with his clan - certainly never something for which he would have thought to seek _permission._

Alistair slept on his stomach, and mistook the extra weight against his ribs for that of the Mabari... until sometime before he was to wake for his watch hour and turned to catch the scent of sandalwood and anber grease - a far cry from kaddis stink. Morrigan was kicking him daintily in the ribs and seemed to take great mocking interest in the whole ordeal, especially when she caught the look of utter terror with which Alistair regarded his bedroll guest.

Morrigan could not contain her outburst of laughter; Alistair rolled swiftly free of his sleeping mat lest he be stabbed; Mathain did not stir.

The second anomaly of affection came as they were no less closer to locating their target and Mathain was close to despair. He sat beside Alistair at the doling-out of supper and did not leave his silent post well past the meal's end. To Mathain, seeking out the close bonds he shared with his old clan was not so unusual; largely ignorant of shem habits and inhibitions and social norms. Where usually a friend or mentor had awaited with a consoling arm, now all he faced was shem bewilderment and hesitation; which stung like rejection.

Mathain huddled closer to Alistair, glaring into the fire. Stubbornly demanding.

Alistair swallowed and, after a heartbeat, pressed back into the lean. Mathain breathed a little easier, scowl loosening back into the far-away pinch of anxiety over their current mission.

As for the third anomaly, Mathain had not set down against Alistair, had not invaded his personal space at all. Instead he was engulfed in an embrace between two scouting Dalish, who greeted him as family though they were not of his clan, and it was Alistair who breathed a little easier at this casual display of affection between strangers.

* * *

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* * *

There was no cause for the biting stab of jealousy to ever enter Mathain's life; indeed amongst the Dalish the emotion had no cause to exist. What you owned, the entire clan owned. Who you loved, the entire clan loved. There were different types of love, sure, and sometimes the younger, unbonded elves would have their small dramas and heartaches, but more usually a pair knew they were to marry before they were ever old enough to have to worry about such things.

It had been so with Gheyna and Cammen.

For the first time in his life, Mathain knew the bitter sting of jealousy (though not the first that he'd dealt with other bitter romantic side-effects, pining and deliberating over Tamlen as he had). These lovers still had each other, and they were wasting time on clan protocol. He was jealous of what they had, of the _newness _of it all for them. The uncertainty in Gheyna's obvious decision to accept Cammen, the impatience and hopelessness in Cammen's denial that there was anything to be done to help them.

Mathain was nearly convinced to tell the couple to just wait it out, at least until the hunters were allowed back into the territories without fear of further monstrous attack, but they _still had each other_ and were _wasting precious time_ over the could-be and how-to and all the little what-ifs. They were also under the prevailing threat of _death_, should the monsters prove a renewed attack.

Thus, believing it wouldn't prolong his current agreement with Keeper Zathrian in any direct way, Mathain Mahariel agreed to take Cammen Urdiel into the forest so he could shoot down a boar. By tradition, both parents of any future kin had to be skilled in weaponry and hunting, or else how could they defend and feed their young? To ensure a certain level of safety and survival, a spouse had to present their chosen with a token of their kill, and receive a token in return as acceptance.

Cammen had not yet received anything from Gheyna; though she'd plenty of pelts in her Aravan from an early season of apprentiship. He was going to surprise her with the tusks and sturdy waterproofed hyde of the rock boar (which despite its name had supple skin used often as bag lining or water skeins).

"In Sabrae, it is to earn our _valasin _that we hunt." Mathain chatted easily with Cammen as they left the guarded perimeter of the clan Va'Linis' camp. His companions had made their own camp just inside one of the scout's designations, and it was here they pretended to have business in order to slip out under scrutiny. Alistair had not recognized Mathain at first; the Dalish leathers and open expression and gentle tone with which he spoke a far cry from the growling half-mad warrior painted in bandit blood. "We are assigned an animal to hunt specifically, trading the pelts in marriage. Usually it is a wolf, to keep the Dread Wolf from making mischief of the union. Ah, Alistair."

"Er," The shock had yet to wear from Alistair's face, doubling the impression that he was a harmless dullard good for muscle and too dumb for treachery (which was the story Mathain wielded toward his fellow Dalish, in order to cool their paranoia).

Mathain simply unslung his shield and shoved it against Alistair's chest, holding it up until it was taken in turn. "We're hunting. Look after that for me, will you?"

Cammen was shy in the presence of so many strangers, grinning nervously at Leliana's open stare and avoiding Morrigan's attention completely. Sten, as usual, had busied himself with weapon repairs and hadn't looked up from the cracked longsword. (If he had, it might have given Cammen a terror-fit.)

Ignoring the fact that Mathain hadn't bothered to introduce his tag-along (who seemed happy enough to remain anonymous), Alistair interjected. "You aren't going just the two of you? There are _werewolves_, Thain!"

Mathain's face quirked up in an offended smirk. "All the way in the southwest, to the river, _Stair_. We are very obviously headed northeast, _Stair_."

Alistair shoved the shield right back at Mathain's chest. "You aren't going alone. Whatever this hunting business is, we can surely accompany."

There was an expected argument that died on its way through Mathain's thoughts, and he shrugged. "Fine. You'll need to tread lightly; leave heavier armor behind. We'll be on the trail marked by the storm-split poplar. Cammen?"

But Cammen was already ahead of Mathain, eager to finish his task before the day's light ran out. Eager to return to Gheyna, the unmistakable bound in his step that sang of glorious purpose. Mathain ached to recognize it.

* * *

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	5. Like a River

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* * *

The first Alistair had thought of Mathain Mahariel had been 'dead recruit walking'. He had seen more and more cases of the Taint as the darkspawn incursion escalated near Ostagar, and knew the stages. There was surprise, of course, and a bit of hope and a bit of relief when Mathain survived the Joining, though not to Mathain's immediate benefit.

Mahariel had carried that wild-eyed, glazed look about him from the onset, bright eyes wide and owlish under glossy dark brows. The mass of his black hair had flown wildly about his face, and like a rabid thing he would attack the members of the war camp at their unwitting provocation. Alistair nearly feared they'd have to kill him out of mercy, but a solid unwavering look from Duncan had stilled that suggestion in his throat.

'Give him time, Alistair.'

Alistair, because he trusted Duncan, had given Mathain time. Watched him closely, as was his place as senior Warden. Saw him recover after the terrible loss at Loghain's betrayal into something more befitting a grey warden, though he still pulled odd stunts and answered every disagreement with violence.

For his part, Mathain had shown intelligence in his rare show of dialogue - which argued sanity. His eyes shed their wild shock and took on a keen but too often guarded edge, warming only when amused by the Mabari's antics or caught lost in thought at the fireside. He had smartened up his hair and armor, and acted as a proud cat might after a harmless scare had knocked it off its duvet, strutting about as if nothing wrong had happened at all and everything was exactly as he had orchestrated it.

Well, not strutting exactly. Mahariel didn't strut. He could slink, he could pace, and often he would crouch, or leap, or nervously dart across the open spaces they often had to ford traveling through Ferelden. He hauled equipment well, wider in the shoulders and longer in the step than any of the elves this far south of Nevarra. At any rate, Mahariel had visibly changed since the onset of their uncertain journey. When he'd consoled Alistair over the loss of the Wardens and Duncan's death, he had shown a compassion and understanding for grief that Alistair had been sure was absent from his ruthless nature. It only proved what a cock-up first impressions could be.

But by then Alistair had already made his own disfavorable first impression, and figured perhaps Mathain thought him bossy or overbearing or - Maker forbid - _weak_. This assumption proved wrong with every nervous twitch Mathain would throw his way, every hesitation in his step at the end of the fighting day. He'd once or twice called Alistair naive, yes, but then he thought all 'quickened children' were naive. It didn't take Alistair long to figure out the physical attacks were a sort of training, a type of tough love Mathain himself might have been introduced to all throughout his developmental years. The Dalish had every reason to keep each other on their toes, after all.

And then, once Alistair was _certain _he had Mathain figured out, an instance (more usually an argument) would rear to disprove his theories. Like waking to find he had shared a bedroll for half the night with the twitchy stab-happy lunatic. Or commenting off-hand, and instead of the immediate explosive response, only finding there to be an unsettling silence and something like sadness coloring Mathain's expression.

It was nerve-wracking, trying to understand the man, so Alistair stopped trying to understand at all and learned to take things as they happened. It was with great relief that when they reached the Brecelian forest camp he found most Dalish to be just as bowstring-twitchy and huggy-feely and glare-y stabby as Mathain himself.

Yes. The Dalish Camp. So, then Mathain... Mathain was different. Suddenly he was Matha-een Maha-ree-ul, not Thain-of-the-Grey (because really, what a mouthful!) and he was... different.

He didn't twitch, or flinch, or disappear into the trees. He clasped hands and spoke openly and made eye contact and embraced perfect strangers. He would _smile_, and even, once or twice, laugh. Not the hard, cruel laughter that was half self-recrimination and half scorn for the joke at hand, no. Something light and soft and emphatic - not that there was much cause for laughter, with the tragedy the Va'Linis clan was currently embroiled in. But when it did happen, it was a thing to behold.

Learning of his induction into the Grey Wardens, many of the remaining hunters thrust tokens of luck and little wooden idols of the Forgotten battle god, the Destroyer Nnar, into Mathain's possession. They pinned his hair up with bone combs and wooden-beaded thongs of leather to keep it out of his eyes, marking the newly donated hunting leathers with the Halla skull raiment of clan Sabrae.

Alistair was mystified by the camaraderie, as he was certain no human gathering would have ever proved such selfless goodwill. Nor as much suspicion and hostility, on the contrary. Alistair and the rest of their party were restricted from the more intimate circle of the camp, and had witnessed the desperately cheerful proceedings from a distance, garnering second-hand the dire situation and why it was with such urgency Keeper Zathrian had bargained for the treatise.

Hard to lend _elv'henan_ warriors to a cause if they were all slain within the season, after all.

* * *

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	6. Bridge Between Fires

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* * *

The musk of the animal precedes its attack, a massive dark blur barreling through the underbrush. Mathain was five paces behind Cammen's light step down the narrow deer-path, and takes the brunt of the rush with an upraised shield. Despite the arrows quilled in its neck, the kill is owed to Mathain's blade - plunged up through the cavernous rib-cage - and Cammen's hunt must continue. Mathain bends to begin skinning the bear out of habit while Cammen takes to the trees with his longbow. Alistair blunders onto the path with all the grace the bear had shown, blinking through the dim of the thick forest with worry etched clear across his face. "I thought I heard an animal through h - oh. Oh, that's..."

"The werewolves must have the forest in a panic." Mathain is startled as Leliana, quiet and swift in her stride, bends to help him field-strip the heavy animal. "Cammen has taken his hunt to the treetops." His voice is dispassionate, removed by shock. The animal had passed right by Cammen, gone straight for Mathain, clearly -

"What is this hunt _for_, exactly?" Alistair's question is stained with the reluctance of his own ignorance; he might actually rather not know.

"A certain rite of ceremony." A knot has grown in Mathain's gut and he is loathe to let the sorrow dull his sight. "Dirthamen himself must have sent me this bear." It was a sign, an ill tiding. Or else the Gods were as ignorant to his loss as his companions, and had wasted a life on no joyful gift.

"What, sort of a good-luck hunt before all the werewolf-stabbing?"

"I know the tale of Dirthamen," Leliana perks up through Alistair's suspicion, circling the large hind paw with her dagger to help peel the thick pelt free. "As a story-teller, I have read much of foreign mythologies. Let us see, if I remember correctly, his is a lesson about keeping secrets, no?"

Mathain's mouth has gone thin, and he throws his entire weight into hauling the bear over to expose a better knife-lay. "Mythologies?" he all but growls. "Those 'tales' are the history of my people."

"Oh, ah - of course," Leliana frowns, wiping a splatter of blood from the hem of her leathers. "I did not mean - "

"Of course you meant no insult. Only you are _shem_, and clumsy in courtesy where Alistair might be clumsy in step."

"Hey," Alistair half-heartedly protests, more to make noise than actually draw Mathain's ire. And here he'd thought they had been getting better, the two of them. Five steps forward, seven steps back; and then the Remigold waltz and a bloody nose, and _another_ step back. Having fallen off that proverbial horse so often, Alistair had started to wonder if - instead of picking himself up and trying again as the adage goes - if he shouldn't instead begin to question the motives of the damn horse.

Mathain glares over his shoulder, shortsword cleaving through the thick ropes of the bear's tendon before he bends to haul the heavy, fragrant pelt from its hill of flesh and bone. "I have yet to meet a shem that does not make up for any small strength with a large amount of weakness." He glances up at Leliana, who for all that is staring back at him with the hard edge of curiosity, and bristles. "'Clever' does not excuse you from arrogance."

"Of course not." Succinct, suspicious. Leliana is not yet acclimated to Mahariel's shifting moods. "I... have been careless with my words yet again. You have my sincere apology." But for all her sincerity, still she studies the clench of Mathain's jaw as he folds the damp pelt in halves, of the tension in his frame whenever she nears to assist.

Alistair offers his shoulder for the hauling of the skin and Mathain's answer is as venom. "Oh you might as well take it. It is not as if I've any use for it!" Too weighty to throw, the pelt is dropped at Alistair's feet with a heavy slap of blood-wet fur.

Alistair balks, wary. He does not move to take the musty pelt, midges gathering on it like small gray stars on a black sky. "Er. I was thinking we could trade it, probably."

A snarl, "Then why don't you?"

"Well, I think I will? That's what we've been doing all this time, on the road, isn't it?" Alistair's question rises in pitch, patience waning.

Mathain's laugh is hard and bitter, and Leliana moves between them to push at Alistair's arm. "Let us take the pelt back. We know our most intrepid friend can handle himself in these woods, do we not?"

Alistair scoffs. "_Handle_ himself? He's having a fit over something we've already been doing for _weeks_ -"

Mathain sneers, fists balled at his sides, "_Elvarel_, da'shemlen."

Alistair throws his hands up, shrugging Leliana away. "Did you just _insult_ me? Get over here and help us carry this stinking pelt and stop _acting like a nutter_, or -"

"_Ga'rannis - _ leave it there to rot, if it please you! There is no _use_ for it!" Mathain has turned his back, arms folded. Shoulders nearly to his ears.

"Alistair," Leliana's voice is flint, and when her hand returns to Alistair's arm it brooks no argument. "I think perhaps it is you who is most suited to carry the pelt back to camp." She dimples her plea, "Be a dear, and take it for us? I should like to speak with Mathain, alone." She drops her eyes, her voice, stepping in closer so as to not be overheard. "Look how he is trembling, as a leaf about to fall from its tree."

"He's already fallen from his tree," Alistair dead-pans. "Hitting every branch on the way down. With his head. You can't possibly think these episodes of his are_ - _are what, I don't know, you tell me." Then, louder, "You _do_ know that in shem culture it's considered really, _really_ bad to hit a woman, right?" When Mathain does not answer, Alistair sighs. Leliana offers no remorse, stepping away with a curt nod. With one last shrug, Alistair bends to gather the bear pelt in an awkward bundle. "All right. Don't come crying to me when you get stabbed."

Leliana's smile was, despite the situation, warm. "I am not the type of woman who so easily surrenders to tears, my friend."

* * *

They make good on their return to camp, Cammen satisfied with a doe skin and Leliana carrying a leg of venison while Mathain bore the rest of the deer's carcass over his shoulders (striding effortlessly under its weight, scowling, dutiful). Alistair was helping Sten to strip and tan the bear hide, or more realistically it was Sten who did the heavy lifting and Alistair who tried to be somewhat helpful with an extra arm or two for the stretching rack. Morrigan was the one who applied the ammoniatic paste, the curve of the tanning knife dull and dark in the pungent task.

The mabari hound circled their camp-within-a-camp, ears to the wind of the northeast.

"Is he...?" Alistair mumbles to Leliana, wiping a bead of sweat from his jaw.

"We spoke. I was soundly rebuffed," This, delivered with a cheer that belied a half-truth. "It is promised, though; by the time of the wedding Mathain shall be a degree more cheerful." A sunny laugh. "Could you imagine it? I have never seen a Dalish wedding, and there is to be a feast, oh, and story-telling! We are invited by the bridegroom!"

Alistair's confusion only doubles. "A wedding, in the middle of all this?"

"Of course not. But once we have conquered our foe, Cammen - our fearless hunter - shall present his kill to the implacable young Gheyna to win her hand at long last. It is only up to us, foreign interlopers we may be, to end the terror of the dread wolf -"

"The Dread Wolf is a god, and has nothing to do with Witherfang." Mathain appears at Alistair's elbow, arms crossed.

Leliana's eyes sparkle in mischief. "Oh, but it sounds so much better to put 'dread' before the title of our nemesis, does it not?"

Alistair, wide-eyed, searches the air between Laysister and Grey Warden.

Mathain scoffs, but his reply is chosen carefully; "As you say, _ma'moiselle_."

"Your opinion is valued, _dor'falon_." Leliana's Orlesian accent makes a clumsy attempt at the elvish word, and at her curtsy Mathain chuckles. "Now to wash the muck of our journey off," Leliana, smug, departs.

Alistair watches her pass with careful suspicion. "What. Was. That."

"She called me 'grey friend'."

"Aaaand what did you call her?"

"The Orlesian word for 'young lady'."

"... You two are having wild crazy-person sex whenever I turn my back, aren't you?"

Mathain straightens, as if pinched. "_What_?"

"I'm sorry, Thane, I just can't wrap my head around your brand of crazy and her brand of crazy ever making friendly without _physical intervention_. And you certainly didn't try to beat it out of her, as you do with me; which I don't like by the way."

Mathain shakes his head, reluctant to even address the massive pile of _shemhood_ that had just spilled into the conversation as if someone had knocked Alistair over like a tea carafe. "You are correct in that Leliana is... touched, in a way. Her faith is unshakable, but so it is with most indoctrinated during their time of need. To be so strongly devoted to a lie, there must be a measure of solace in it. To so need that solace, there must have been a grave catastrophe in her life. 'Tis not for us to judge the misery of others, only to set the better example."

"...Who _are_ you?"

Mathain sighs, deep and long and patient. "I am Matha'in of the Grey." A flicker in the stone of his expression. "Or else, I am trying to be."

"But a wedding? We don't exactly have _time_ for that sort of thing."

"And no use for a rose, but still you bent to the roadside to dig with your sword until the bloom was uprooted." Mathain crosses his arms, cooly triumphant. "There is no _time_ at all where a celebration of life would go remiss. _Especially_ in moments of strife, isn't that what you said?"

The reluctance tugged at the corners of Alistair's mouth. He didn't mind that there was a celebration at the end of this bloody mess, but the sooner they were away from the Dalish camp the sooner Mathain could go back to his broody complacency with darkspawn-felling. "I did say that, didn't I? But I can't talk to you right now if you're going to be twenty different people from one moment to the next, thanks."

"Corral your assumptions, da'shemlen. I have only ever been the one man." A discomfited hitch of the shoulder, armor creaking where it had been knocked into an ill fit by the bear's weight.

"A man who would first dump a chamber pot on a religious leader but turn around to skip hand-in-hand with someone from the same order. I'm guessing it's because Leliana is _a lot_ cuter than the withered prune of a Revered Mother, but that would make far too much _sense_ to be any truth of yours."

Ducking his head, Mathain steps forward. "Leliana is many things, but fie you for a fool if you honestly think of her a Chantry devout. An Andrastian Devout, yes, but that is no fault of hers. That blame ought be laid at the feet of the shemlen leaders who offer the false respite to any what might find independent thought too heavy a responsibility."

"..._Morrigan_."

"What?" Morrigan answers dispassionately, folding herbs into poultice near the fireside.

Alistair forces a false grin over the top of Mathain's head. "Sorry, nevermind, thought you had morphed into a Dalish madman just to get under my skin. False alarm."

Morrigan shakes her head, standing from her task. "In this rare instance I would have to agree with you, Alistair. We've no time for such frivolities as match-making."

"Has the Black City itself fallen from the sky? Something in the water, maybe?" Alistair contemplates the tree canopy with grave suspicion. "Not that I'm complaining. I like the fact that everyone is getting along so well all of a sudden. Something's just telling me not to trust any of it," this directed at Morrigan, who dusts her hands and approaches Mathain with a thoughtful frown.

"If we're _quite _ finished on assisting your little friend with his rite of manhood...?" Morrigan scoffs at Alistair's indignant sputter, "In regards to the deer-hunt. Honestly Alistair, do you _never_ pay heed to that which is going on around you? 'Tis not advanced thermology, these inter-personal fracasi."

"Okay," Alistair laments, "Now you're just making words up."

* * *

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End file.
